About

(oth­er web­sites by this author: thormay@yahoo.com; http://independent.academia.edu/ThorMay ; http://thormay.net )

  • top­ic sug­ges­tions: thormay@yahoo.com

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Gen­er­al Mat­ters

1. This is a REAL NAMES blog. If you want to com­ment or make sug­ges­tions, we need to know who you are. Yes, there are plus­es and minus­es to that idea, but on bal­ance it seems the best way to keep things civil and pro­duc­tive (flames will not be pub­lished). Besides, we admire peo­ple who have the open courage of their con­vic­tions, with­out being aggres­sive about it. You agree to assume respon­si­bil­i­ty for your com­ments under the juris­dic­tion of the law of Aus­tralia.

2. You will need to reg­is­ter through Captcha secu­ri­ty before you com­ment. Note — To see com­ments, or to make com­ments on a top­ic, click that top­ic link. Com­ments auto­mat­i­cal­ly come to me for review before they are post­ed.

3. This blog exists as a con­ve­nience which has gone through mul­ti­ple iter­a­tions of mee­tups and lao­ca­tions. Its orig­in was a mee­tup which still occurs bi-week­ly in Bris­bane, Aus­tralia, called Gen­tle Thinkers (http://www.meetup.com/Gentle-Thinkers/ ). The Gen­tle Thinkers Bris­bane mee­tup is now not asso­ci­at­ed with this top­ic list, but the old top­ics, up to num­ber 79, have been retained for ref­er­ence. The Gen­tle Thinkers con­nec­tion was fol­lowed by a new mee­tup,  Bris­bane Active Thinkers. The Bris­bane chap­ter of Active Thinkers was closed when I trans­ferred to Ade­laide, but the top­ics dis­cussed are retained here. Ade­laide Active Thinkers fol­lowed the for­mat of the Bris­bane mod­el, but I closed it  after a year, becom­ing dis­sat­is­fied with the lev­el of par­tic­i­pa­tion. How­ev­er, those Ade­laide top­ics are also retained here. The­se three pre­vi­ous mee­tups have now been suc­ceed­ed in Ade­laide by a new mee­tup, Ques­tion Every­thing! The for­mat of Ques­tion Every­thing! dif­fers some­what from the ear­lier attempts. Those par­tic­i­pat­ing are required to send in their own dis­cus­sion top­ic before they come to a mee­tup. This is more demand­ing, and the num­bers are like­ly to be small­er, but it is hoped that the real lev­el of com­mit­ment and prepa­ra­tion will be high­er.

Every­one with a work­ing brain is wel­come to Ques­tion Every­thing! Bring your ideas, but try to bring some oth­er infor­ma­tion on each top­ic too.  We don’t mind ener­get­ic debate, love irony, and try to keep a fine sense of the ridicu­lous with­out sur­ren­der­ing to cyn­i­cism. We’ll lis­ten care­ful­ly, and respect your dis­agree­ment. We like attempts at solu­tions much bet­ter than vague com­plaints begin­ning with “should”

5. The dis­cus­sion top­ics on the main page are main­ly sug­ges­tions for live mee­tup con­ver­sa­tions. Those which have already been dis­cussed in a mee­tup are marked as such in the top­ic head­er.

6. Apart from the live mee­tups, you are wel­come to take part in an online dis­cus­sion. We most val­ue com­ments which add infor­ma­tion for oth­ers, or provide links to such infor­ma­tion. We don’t mind opin­ions if they are rea­soned opin­ions. That is, try to explain why you have a point of view rather than just state a bald prej­u­dice. Try to see two sides to issues. Above all, spend a lit­tle time try­ing  to find out some­thing about the sub­ject before com­ment­ing. (This is a good habit for both live mee­tups and online com­ment).

7. This blog has been con­struct­ed inde­pen­dent­ly by Thor May, and Thor over­sees what­ev­er is post­ed here. How­ev­er, you remain legal­ly respon­si­ble for what­ev­er you post.

8. Thor’s own web­site is http://thormay.net. He also has many arti­cles and papers pub­lished at http://independent.academia.edu/ThorMay

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